Almighty Coach

Chowtai Kim, just as he had wished, finally replaced Dai Li as the physical coach for the young players of the team. Then he enjoyed a sense of achievement and superiority for a couple of seconds. But after that, he felt that he had been cheated when he heard Claude’s new appointment for Dai Li.

Dai Li was indeed no longer the fitness coach for the young players. But he got a better new job in charge of the period physical training of key players.

Jin knew that these two jobs were on totally different levels. The period training of key players, compared with the training of young players, could be considered the core work in a team.

Period training was not to design a timetable, nor to choose the workouts and decide how many times trainees should do them. And it was not a one-time exercise to make an athlete tired and sweating, either.

True period training could turn a small, skinny child into a strong warrior, and then he would kill you on the pitch.

In more detail, period training was a systematic and flexible training guided by an ultimate goal. It used long-term and flexible methods to achieve different aims during different phases. And it let the accumulation of those different aims lead to the fulfillment of the ultimate goal.

In professional soccer or professional basketball games, one season’s schedule tended to be relatively complicated. For example, in the NBA, a team would play 82 games in a season, including road games far away and hard back-to-back games. In soccer, a team in the Premier League played 38 rounds in the league, plus the FA Cup and Carling Cup. Strong teams also played in the Champions League, and occasionally players were temporarily absent because of the national team’s games.

This kind of irregular schedule made the training of the players irregular, too. A rigid training plan was obviously not practical in such a situation, and adjustments and changes had to be applied to the training according to the actual schedule of games.

For instance, players of an NBA team just finished back-to-back road games and they were tired to death. If training was arranged on the second day, it wouldn’t help the team, and on the contrary, it could have bad influences on the team. And playing away from home in a soccer game brought restrictions of training conditions that might make some training programs impossible to carry out, and there was also a possibility of leaks of tactical intentions.in away games.

In this case, period training became the training method that had to be used.

Considering three weeks as a short period, one to two months a medium period, and one season a long period, one could set different levels of goals as well as training programs.

Take strength training as an example. It would be impossible for a player to do strength training every day during the season. If he went to his fitness coach for advice, the fitness coach might tell him to do strength training four times per fortnight. A layman might regard "four times per fortnight" as "twice a week."

But in fact, the fitness coach has used a professional expression of period training. The so-called "four times per fortnight" might be one training session in the first week and three sessions of training in the second week, and it might mean that the player should complete all four training sessions within one week, too.

During the whole season, all training programs of a team were arranged with the period training as their core. So Claude gave the job to Dai Li, which meant that Dai Li began to take the core work of the team.

In fact, since period training was a very complicated and professional training method, it was not available for each player. In professional teams, there were always some people who didn’t even have the chance to play. For example, if a soccer match had an 18-player list, and the other players who were not on that list had no task to play, no coach would arrange complicated period training sessions for them.

...

"I heard that you’ve had Dai Li in charge of the period training of main players." Harman, holding a coffee cup, continued, "It was all your responsibility before."

"I’m letting Li get familiar with the work first. I will teach him soon, and I hope he can help me with this part of the job. I’m letting him get used to it at the beginning of the season, because I am afraid I will have no time to take care of it when the season proceeds and player injuries start coming up," Claude answered.

"Yeah, you were in charge of period training and Franz was in charge of the special training for the injured players. Now you are left alone, and it is really hard for you to take care of these two tasks at the same time. More professional knowledge and experience are needed in the special training for the injured players, otherwise, the training will make the player’s injury worse. It really needs your efforts. Compared with it, the period training is only daily work that just needs a step-by-step carrying out, which is much simpler."

Haman took a sip of coffee, then put down his cup and asked, "But is the young Dai Li qualified enough for the job? Claude, I’m not interfering with your work, but I am still worried about the ability of Asian coaches."

"I brought you this." Claude handed a document to Harman. "These are the latest physical fitness reports of the young players on the team. I had Dai Li in charge of them during this time, so these reports can be seen as the results of his work."

Harman took the reports and read them one by one. Gradually, he seemed to relax.

"Significant progress," he said. "Usually I don’t pay much attention to these young players, but according to these figures, they have made great progress. It seems that Dai Li is not only good at helping athletes lose weight, but is also a good physical trainer."

"Yes, he is a professional fitness coach after all," Claude agreed. "In terms of soccer training, Asian coaches are way behind us indeed. But as a fitness coach, Dai Li is comparable to European coaches. I think he will be able to fulfill Franz’s responsibilities after some training."

...

On the training ground, most of the players looked at Dai Li curiously.

In their opinion, Dai Li was too young, even younger than several players on the field. Such a young coach was very rare in the country.

Several of the foreign players, led by Neol, were not interested in him. Professional sports started early in western countries, which resulted in a more complete coach training system. Even in South American countries like Brazil and Argentina that are not as rich as European countries, many young people choose to be coaches.

However, Feng Gao, Yunping Zheng, and Jinshan Sun knew Dai Li’s abilities.

Dai Li made them lose five kilos of weight within three days without extremely heavy exercises or dieting. He simply made them slim. The three had no idea how Dai Li did that. But they all knew that Dai Li was a great coach.

"Gao, is that the Coach Li who helped you lose weight?" someone asked.

"Yes, that’s him! Five kilos in three days. I even thought I had to be sick to lose so much weight, until I saw the results of the physical test, which showed that I am healthy," Feng Gao replied.

"He is so young! I think he is younger than me," the other player continued.

"I don’t know his age. Maybe he is younger than you," Feng Gao answered with a smile.

"Oh, and you once told me that this Coach Li’s way of warming up is unique. It’s like doing a radio broadcast exercise?" the other added.

"Yes, and you do it for a long time." Gao nodded and then said, "I’ve been playing soccer for so many years and experienced a lot of coaches. It’s my first time to see such a way of warming up. I was really embarrassed when I did it for the first time."

Days before, Dai Li had helped Gao and two others to lose weight with a kind of gymnastics disguised as a warm up. So Gao always thought that he was doing some sort of warm up similar to a radio broadcast exercise.

"I am really curious about the radio broadcast exercise that can be used as a warm up." The player beside Gao looked eager for a try.

"He will probably help us warm up later. You’ll know then," Feng Gao answered.

At that moment Dai Li stepped in front of the crowd with a small black box.

"First of all, let’s warm up. Simple movements. Please just follow me!" said Dai Li.

"Sure, it’s time for the radio broadcast exercise," Gao whispered, and then stood prepared for the slimnastics.

However, Dai Li pressed the button on the black box and then music boomed out from it.

That box was a portable loudspeaker.

"Full preparations of equipment! Was there music for you when you were doing the radio broadcast exercise?" The player beside Gao asked.

But Feng Gao replied with a confused face, "Music? Our warm up didn’t go with music but beats—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight—cried by Coach Li. That’s all we got."

"Maybe the presence of the foreign players is the reason here. They probably cannot understand the orders if he just shouts out beats in Chinese, " the other player said with a smile, trying to find an explanation.

At the same time, the prelude ended.

"Sounds like the popular song for square dance lately."

"It is indeed the song for a square dance. Don’t tell me that Coach Li is going to teach us to square dance?"

"Stop joking! He is a professional coach and we are professional athletes. Square dance? Your imagination is so great."

But Dai Li had begun to perform a square dance as the warm up while several players discussed in low voices.

Those who followed his movements didn’t recognize it at the start, but soon they realized that something was wrong.

Someone looked to Feng Gao and said with doubt, "It’s not the radio broadcast exercise! We are just performing a square dance!"

Feng Gao answered innocently and unhappily, "Why do you blame me for this? I’m not a liar! I was doing the radio broadcast exercise at that moment! I don’t know how the radio broadcast exercise became square dancing!"